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Talk:Roy Harper/@comment-80.4.34.215-20180313183403
Ian Woodward: I didn't really 'GO' to see Roy Harper in the first place. Initially, he happened to do a guest spot at places I frequented at the time; later, he got to 'headline' (if that's the right word) at the same or similar places. I didn't have a record player in my youth. Apart from listening to the radio, it was going to clubs, pubs, hotels, coffee-houses, theatres, festivals and concert halls for me - anywhere that offered live music. And my musical tastes were very wide (the next paragraph has a few examples but just skip it, if you wish to get to the answer to your question). I saw Pink Floyd at Westfield College one night and the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem at the Gaumont in Kilburn the next night - Julian Bream at Queen Elizabeth Hall on a Sunday afternoon; Bert Jansch and John Renbourne at the Horseshoes in Tottenham Court Road the same evening. There was jazz (Roland Kirk, Charles Lloyd with Keith Jarrett, Woody Herman, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Jimmy Smith, Tubby Hayes, Dick Morrissey and many others) and there were classical concerts (Sinfonia of London at Kenwood, Stockhausen played at the Royal Festival Hall to name but two), There were dances at various colleges around London at which bands played (Ten Years. And I've missed out so many, many others (Cream before they were called Cream, Jimmy Witherspoon, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Rod Stewart with the Soul Agents, Long John Baldry and Alexis Korner in small venues, Dylan at the Albert Hall, Donovan there later - with T.Rex in their acoustic form supporting) - Incredible String Band in small clubs and in concert - with Tim Buckley guesting at the latter - Jesse Fuller, Little Walter, Ron Geesin, Jackson C Frank, Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band, Alex Campbell and on and on - and on and on. There were poetry + music events, too (The Barrow Poets at the Printer's Devil in the City, and at the Three City Four folk club in Hampstead some nights, as well as Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick on another night), not to mention 'happenings and 'be-ins' at the Roundhouse (and one with Yoko Ono in Parliament Hill Fields). The Marquee, Les Cousins, the Troubadour in Earls Court, Ronnie Scott's 'Old Place', the Bull's Head in Barnes - all great draws in their own right, almost irrespective of who was playing. The range of musical and related activitiues in and around London in the 1964 to 1968 period was quite simply wondrous. Who couldn't find something they liked? And then 'real life' intervened - an engagement, a 'proper' job (400 miles north), marriage (we're still married!), then a move from renting to house purchase, and later came children. We still go to concerts, a few folk clubs, the theatre, cinema etc etc etc, but less often. Nowadays, there are more funerals to attrend than marriages, sadly - not to mention hospital attendances - but music is still a great passion., not to mention a touch of nostalgia, as you will have gathered. Probably